Tens of thousands bid farewell to Patriarch Pavle, late leader of Serbian Orthodox Church

Serbian patriarch’s funeral held in Belgrade

BELGRADE, Serbia — Tens of thousand of people are lining Belgrade’s streets for a funeral procession for Patriarch Pavle who died at the age of 95 after 19 years as the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

White-robed church elders led somber prayers in the downtown Saborna Curch, where Pavle’s body covered by green-and-gold embroidered cloth lay in an open casket surrounded by flickering candles.

Pavle died over the weekend after leading the 7-million member church through its post-Communist revival and during the bloody ethnic conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s.

He is to be buried Thursday at a monastery in a Belgrade suburb across town.